Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

House IP Leader Endorses P2P Blocking

Posted by Soulskill on from the peer-to-peer-prohibition dept.

Technical Writing Geek points out an Ars Technica report on comments from Representative Howard Coble (R-NC), who sits on the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. In a recent editorial, Coble attempts to discourage P2P file sharing among young people, and praises Ohio University for its ban on P2P applications last year. Coble also suggests that identity theft is a great danger from file sharing. Public Knowledge is running a similar analysis, which argues against the main points from the editorial.

3 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. just like guns by KevMar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Guns dont kill people, people kill people.

    We should outlaw cars too, look at all the people they kill.

    I know this has nothing to do about murder, but they are blaming the technology for the crimes. If you get rid of P2P, something new will replace it.

    Thats assuming you can get rid of P2P. P2P will not go away any time soon.

    --
    Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
  2. Clueless legislators by Iphtashu+Fitz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Hey, X can be used in illegal ways, therefore we should make it illegal!"

    Let's see, that can apply to everything from raw sugar to automobiles. Quick, file legislation to make them all illegal!

    Compromised Windows systems are being used to flood the internet with spam in violation of various state and federal laws. Outlaw Windows!

    Why cant these congresscritters get it through their thick skulls that there are plenty of legitimate uses for P2P, even in a university environment. A university in Holland is using bittorrent to manage 6500 workstations and it's saving them time and money. The university I work at uses SystemImager on its high performance research cluster to manage the software on all the compute nodes. SystemImager supports the use of bittorrent as a transport mechanism. If these aren't legal, legitimate, and highly useful implementations of bittorrent then I don't know what is. These are just two working examples of P2P being used in university environments in responsible ways, but I'm sure those stuffed shirts in Washington could care less.

  3. Re:ID Theft? by muindaur · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't forget to call them out on their FUD in public to prevent others voting for them.